In addition to be the final resting place of loved ones, a cemetery is also a place to honor and memorialize their lives. In years gone by, families would often visit cemeteries having spectacular landscaping and monuments to picnic, pay respects to ancestors and generally respect the Sabbath. Today cemetery tours, both guided and self-guided are becoming popular particularly with cemeteries having the repose of celebrities or other famous individuals. Generally, a marker or memorial, such as a headstone, a slab, a commemorative plaque, religious symbol or monument is provided at the internment location, whether a burial plot, or a niche in a columbarium. While the marker typically has the name of the decedent, date of birth and date of death, rarely will it have anything else due the marker's limited surface area. Other than the information on the marker, there is not much to learn about the decedent's life, especially for someone unfamiliar with the decedent unless external references are consulted.
For a visitor to a family burial plot in which multiple generations are buried, information about deceased family members, their interment locations, and their relationships to each other, and to the visitor, may be unavailable, scarce, or very hard to find. The recent popularity of genealogy as a home study shows that information about one's great-great-grandmother, or great-uncle has significant commercial value.
Today, obituaries and memorials exist in both printed and electronic forms. Obituaries, because of their notice-like nature, tend to be brief in presenting biographies of decedents, but generally provide information about their funeral plans. Memorials allow for more in depth presentation of the lives of the decedents although these memorials are generally silent as to their funeral information. An online memorial may be created to include text, slideshow, a custom home page, a guestbook, etc. U.S. Pat. No. 7,657,835 to Mindrum, et al. discloses one such method for creating an on-line commemorative presentation for use at a funeral. Published Provisional Patent Application No. 60/160,392 by Platner discloses an online guest book and collaborative biography method for use in a funeral home setting. Thus, there is a recognition in the funeral industry that printed materials alone do not and cannot meet customer demands for dynamic presentations of a decedent's achievements.
Nevertheless, when researching a deceased loved one's information, the above prior art methods generally require searching. Even online or virtual obituaries and memorials such as those described above require a user (or a visitor to the website) to search for information by typing a name in a search field, or clicking on a name that is visibly listed on the website, etc. Looking for the location of a loved one's interment site generally involves further searches and/or investigation, through records or registries of cemeteries, obituaries, or the memories of family members. While printed cemetery guides may provide limited information regarding a few famous or even infamous decedents in a particular cemetery, such information is not interactive, dynamic or necessarily cross referenced to related individuals in the same cemetery. Thus, a need exists for an interactive, dynamic system to reduce the delay and complexity of learning about a deceased loved one in the context of a cemetery, making it a quicker, easier, fulfilling and more memorable experience.